Samantha Warriners world cup title win in South Korea was the sixth in her career. Photo / Getty Images
A strong performance in the swim and cycling legs set New Zealand's Samantha Warriner up to claim her sixth world cup title at the Tongyeong round of the Triathlon World Cup today.
Warriner cruised to the gold medal in a time of one hour, 49 minutes, 49 seconds.
Second was Hollie Avil of Britain, nine seconds back with Vendula Frintova of the Czech Republic, a further 22 seconds down.
"I'm pretty stoked," Warriner, 36 said.
" I was feeling good. In the New Plymouth round, I made lots of mistakes. I made sure not to make the same mistakes here and it worked."
Very windy conditions greeted the small field of only 32 athletes for the start of the 1500 metre wetsuit swim in Tongyeong harbour.
It was local Yun-Jung Jang from South Korea to hold the lead for the entire swim leg.
While Jang and two others led out of the swim, a large group containing all of the top names was close behind and quickly made up this gap early in the bike leg.
Because of the windy conditions and two gruelling hills on the bike course, the lead group stayed together and entered the second transition as one.
Within 50 metres of exiting transition, Warriner pushed the pace, pulling away with only Avil and Frintova able to match her.
The three worked together to put time between them and the rest of the field until the halfway point where Warriner put on a burst of speed to drop Frintova.
"I was pushed all the way by those two and that was really good practice because you need to be able to control yourself in that sort of state," Warriner said.
" I decided to go for it around that last corner and went for it and got it and I'm really pleased."
Avil looked as though she may add to her gold medal collection, trading the lead with Warriner until the final lap.
With two kilometres to go, the veteran surged again on a slight uphill, this time dropping Avil.
- NZPA
